Inset: Jerry Lee Martinez (Kleberg County Jail). Background: Walmart in Kingsville, Texas, where Martinez”s daughter gave birth to a baby, cops say (Google Maps).
A 17-year-old girl in Texas is in a “secure location” and her father is facing new charges after police linked them to a newborn discovered in a trash can of a Walmart bathroom.
Cops with the Kingsville Police Department on Tuesday added charges of tampering with a witness and tampering with physical evidence against 45-year-old Jerry Lee Martinez. He was previously charged with abandoning or endangering a child with criminal negligence. On Thursday, a judge ordered Martinez held on a $300,000 bond. He remains at the Kleberg County Jail.
Meanwhile, his daughter is “not in custody and is currently in a secure location,” cops wrote in a press release.
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According to a courtroom report from local NBC affiliate KRIS, a detective with Kingsville police testified Thursday that Martinez is a danger to the community and police expect to file additional charges in the case. She also said Martinez threatened a witness, who was not identified.
Martinez’s attorney reportedly said that the case against his client “appears very serious.”
Kingsville police said cops in the town of Mathis, where Martinez and his family live some 50 miles north of the Walmart where the baby was found, are also conducting an investigation in tandem with Child Protective Services. Martinez was ordered not to have contact with his daughter or his family, per KRIS.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Walmart employees shortly before 10:30 p.m. on Monday called Kingsville police after they found a newborn in a trash can in the bathroom. Employees were conducting lifesaving efforts on the baby, who was then transported to a local hospital, police said. Doctors pronounced the infant dead, according to a press release.
Cops looked at surveillance video, which showed the 17-year-old girl walk into the bathroom. After about 40 minutes inside, she came out and walked to her car in the parking lot, police said. Some 30 minutes passed until the employees found the baby.
Around 11 p.m., officers spotted the teen’s vehicle and stopped her and Martinez. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital while cops arrested her father, per the press release.
The press release did not say whether the baby was alive at birth or how the child died.
“We extend our deepest condolences to all affected by this tragic event,” police wrote.
Kingsville is located about 45 miles southwest of Corpus Christi.
Texas has a Baby Moses Law, also known as the Safe Haven Law, which allows parents to drop off a baby less than 60 days old at a designated emergency infant care provider.
